Protest music often trades in broad stroke messaging born of group consensus. Red Ship, the
new full length from Star Matriarch, is deeply personal protest music born of Carol Bui’s lived
experience as an AuDHD mother of color and (former) sex worker under Imperialist capitalism.
Melding syncopated world rhythms with abrasive post-punk instrumental explorations, the album
seethes with a palpable, raw humanity. A modernist, global link in the riot grrl chain, on Red
Ship Star Matriarch has alchemized pain into potent, revolutionary, empowering art.

Multi-disciplinary artist Carol Bui traversed the indie rock landscape of the 2000s under her real
name. After a decade long hiatus, Bui returns as the beautifully terrifying Star Matriarch,
weaving her femme-punk roots with the immediate experiences of colonized femme-hood, and
a delicate balance of raw power and vulnerability. A natural-born musician (her mom says she
sang before she could walk), teenage rebellion aligned with the birth of the grunge movement
and her hometown of Washington, D.C.’s punk scene. Her high school years were spent as a
member of local all-female DIY Princessed. Post-graduation, Bui relented to her parents’ urging
to do the good Asian daughter thing and get a degree in information technology. "That's how
you can pay for your hobby", her father insisted. Freshly graduated and newly empowered, Bui
released the LPs This Is How I Recover in 2004 and Everyone Wore White – produced by T.J.
Lipple (Aloha) and Chad Clark (Beauty Pill) – in 2007.

While her work as a software engineer paid the bills, she quickly approached autistic/adhd
burnout. “Doing the model minority thing and the DIYing music thing with so much heavy
masking was too much” she explains. “Going into sex work where you can make more money in
less time, make your own schedule, have clear boundaries and direction was how I
accommodated my brain without having known of my invisible disabilities.” The burnout also
turned her off from the indie music scene she had been trying to navigate, and a passion for
Arabic music emerged. “I started studying 'bellydance', which is colonizer language for dance from the Southwest Asian-North African region” explains Bui. “When you study this dance, you
also study the music, geopolitical history, the humanity.”

Bui began work on Red Ship while teaching herself drums. Inspired by Arabic rhythm and feel,
Bui’s AuDHD sensory seeking is reflected in the rhythm-centric approach to her writing. Over
the next decade Bui poured herself into that world, travelling to Egypt multiple times to study.
“Outside of Western civilization, music is a very physical experience” she explains. “In parts of
Africa, you’re not considered a composer until you also learn the dance.”  The original version of the record was released in 2011 but was rife with Orientalist embellishments. "I was trying to capitalize on my own marginalization as an Asian American sex worker, but also with Red Ship. The white Eurocentric gaze got me initially, and it was all over the original release." Additionally, the social climate was, and still isn't, kind to sex workers and 
thus, Bui didn’t feel safe in presenting the record as truly autobiographical. “So, I retracked all
vocals, added some new guitars, had it remixed, augmented it with new material, and it's being
reissued with the help of one of my favorite feminist rabblerousers", referring to Katy Otto, who
runs Exotic Fever Records. This new iteration of Red Ship is raw, less Orientalist in

instrumentation and theme, while Bui's own personal stories are centered. The influence of
Arabic dance shines still, expressed with a personal authenticity that wasn't there before.
Indeed, the song “Mỹ Lai to Rafah” is based on a rhythm commonly used in a traditional dance
in the Levant.

Weaving her punk roots with the immediate experiences of colonized femme-hood, expertly
executed with a delicate balance of raw power and vulnerability, Red Ship is an empowering
rock catharsis that rejects the shame prescribed for those asserting their agency. “The one thing
that has always been missing for me personally from a lot of punk is feeling a personal
connection to the stories” Bui explains. “I;m going to tell my truth. This was my truth. There's this
relentless message I hear that being Asian American, being a woman, that I’m supposed to
be stoic and hard working. Not allowed to show big expressions of joy or of despair. This record
is my answer to that, born of painful lived experience and the complexity of modern reality.”
Featured on the record is a cover of Vietnamese anti-war ballad “Xin Cho Tôi”, which includes
the lyrics “Please give me clear skies without bombs falling. Please give me the sound of the
birds. Please give me some spicy wine.” Through that song, Bui felt connected to her ancestors.
“I felt like a familial figure was holding me and saying that ‘this is all we want for you.’ I just want
these simple experiences, that I'm entitled to as a human right.” For Bui, the song is now a call
to reject the capitalist idea that hyper-productivity is how one earns the right to exist. "'The
model minority myth' isn't just a tool for white supremacy, it's also our collective trauma
response." she says.

The guitars are abrasive and pithy, the melodies are as ferocious as they are sweet, the
rhythms viscerally primordial, and the words tell uncomfortable stories you probably haven’t
heard. Reclaiming sexuality and radicalizing femininity, a huge part of Star Matriarch’s
redefinition of strength is boldly declaring the right to feel her emotions fully and loudly - no
matter how inconvenient they may be to the white, cishetero patriarchy.
From her boisterous drums that somehow suggest both post-hardcore and Levantine folk, her
lyrical yet abrasive guitars, to her emotively robust voice, Star Matriarch displays the full
spectrum of emotions born from her lived truth; sacred rage, disarming joy, deep grief, and
spiteful celebration. A stunningly embodied record, Red Ship commands a fully somatic listening
experience, challenging the limits of a supposedly dying genre.

​

By Ever Kipp and Isa Gautschi